The Escape Artists
by RoseUK
Summary: Patrick Jane and Angela Ruskin - the original escape artists. I know "origin stories" have been done many times before, but here is my humble version. :) Only a few brief snapshots, really. Thank you for your interest!


**This story's been kicking around in my 'unfinished' folder for a while now. I'm sure I could do a lot more with it (more detail, etc.), but I don't really have the time. I started it after "Orange Blossom Ice Cream" when Jane talks about running away to Lisbon as they are lying in bed. It got me wondering about the many times and ways he's escaped things, probably starting even before Angela. But I could imagine him saying those very words...**

 **The Escape Artists**

Angela was her name, he knew, though he couldn't remember being told, or finding out, or hearing it hollered across the fairground stands – it was already part of him, her name as familiar to him as his own. She was about the same age as him, one or two years older at most, and seemed to him as remote a figure as a goddess from the Greek myths he was reading about in a book filched from the local library. She had a brother, Danny, some years younger than himself, a scamp of a boy who was constantly in trouble from a combination of innocence, haplessness, boldness and bad judgement.

Patrick often saw Angela come to Danny's rescue: shielding him in public - usually against the other carnie workers - then scolding him soundly behind her uncle's gaudy trailer. Danny clearly loved her with a devotion new and somewhat surprising to Patrick, who had no other siblings that he knew of. To a motherless boy with a brutish, cold father given to frequent bouts of self-pity, this was something of a revelation. He found himself intrigued and more than a little envious.

And so Patrick continued to watch and listen, absorbing everything about her, simultaneously ignoring all his father's whining and criticisms. He noticed that Angela did not spend much time with her family, little Danny excepted; that she preferred to sit alone with her beloved dogs, away from the trailers and the noise. "Snooty" was Alex's verdict, although as a rule he displayed zero interest in the younger carnie members unless they could be put to some kind of use. Patrick did not respond, mainly because he disagreed with almost everything the man said. Not that he ever disobeyed him, even so, thought Patrick ruefully. Maybe once he was older and had saved enough money (he had a secret stash currently hidden in a sock), he could get out of this endless merry-go-round of deceit and loneliness.

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Deliberately, carefully, Patrick found himself planning how best to approach her. He thought that he would quite like to talk to her, this chestnut-haired Ruskin girl, who, like him, seemed like just a little bit of an outsider. And one fine evening, in the languorous summer sun, he found his moment. She was racing her dogs up the hill: up, up, up till they reached the top, spinning and chasing and gambolling, faint wisps of laughter and excited barking carried down on the breeze. Eventually she flopped onto her back in the honeyed sunlight and plucked a book from an oversized pocket like a rabbit from a hat. It was her preferred spot on this site, Patrick had noticed. He already knew they had reading in common, something that set them both a little apart from the others. Little boxes of pure magic, holding a billion and one different worlds. As long as you had a book, there was always someplace you could go.

In the end, with all the nerves of his 15 years, Patrick decided to stick to what he knew best: showmanship. He approached her at a diagonal, an apparently careless meander up the hill, trying to look nonchalant, and in the main he succeeded.

As Angela raised her head enquiringly as a pair of battered sneakers came into view, he dropped down silently beside her and began to ply his trade. A bright silver coin tossed into the golden air; a series of deft and nimble tricks. A beam of real enjoyment in his eyes that he could never entirely hide.

Angela watched it all with a curious smile on her lips and an expression in her eyes that for once he couldn't quite read. He finished his small repertoire with a flourish and a cocky lop-sided grin, pushing down his trepidation at her reaction.

There was a pause. Her dog barked.

"Couldn't you just have said 'hi' like a normal person?" she remarked wryly, scratching the dog's ears, adding with a reassuring smile as a shadow flickered over his face: "But you're good. Really. They'll have you top billing in no time."

Patrick stared across into a pair of humorous hazel eyes and knew he had found a friend. Maybe even a real one.

"Thanks," he said, grinning only a little faux-bashfully. "But I've already been top billing. 'The Boy Wonder'," he went on sardonically, a sigh in his voice. "I'm amazed you haven't heard of me."

Angela stared back in the direct gaze that Patrick was beginning to realise was characteristic of her.

"Oh, I've heard of you," she said meaningfully. "Your dad…" and tactfully went no further.

Patrick looked away, ashamed at the memory of that awful incident. Ashamed that the trickery continued, but above all ashamed that this pretty girl should know about it. But when he gathered the courage to look back up, he saw that those warm light eyes were kind, and, most of all, somehow understood. There was no need to explain, to justify, to even talk about it.

"So what are you reading?" he said instead, and reached over to pet the dog.

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As the weeks and months passed, as the Ferris wheel continued to turn and the carousel spun on, Patrick and Angela developed a solid and unswerving friendship that did not exactly go unnoticed by their families. "What's the deal with the little princess?" spat Alex, whose sour mouth could taint any pretty word. "Little Miss High and Mighty will only get us in trouble," he would complain, repeatedly, any reluctant admiration for the Ruskin clan having by this time dissolved into outright bitterness. Patrick had already learned on his fast road out of childhood that it was sometimes better to keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth firmly shut. Sometimes. "Shut the hell up, _Alex_ ," he would find himself driven to retort, angry, because he knew that a combination of rudeness and honesty from a kid like him was the quickest and most reliable way to piss off his cynical father. "You're just a jealous, spiteful old has-been - no talent, no friends, and no one to care after you're gone." He didn't even care if a beating came after.

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From the top of their hill, the carnival was a world away. Shrieks and screeches and brash voices that became a melody in the breeze; garish colours that softened by day and became a mass of glowing starlit colour by night. Air sticky with the smell of fried food and sugar grew clean and soft. Up here, they could breathe.

"If you could go anywhere, be anything, what would you do?" asked Angela one hazy afternoon as they lay on their backs on the stubby grass on the hill, books strewn beside them, as Patrick languidly chewed a grass stalk, eyes closed, happily savouring the rich warmth on his face and the reassuring weight of a contented dog's head on his thigh.

He opened his eyes and gazed upward at the birds wheeling high above them in the boundless blue sky.

"Well... what if we just- left? Just took off?" he murmured. "I could become a famous magician, with my own show, and everyone would pay big bucks, and I could buy you anything you wanted, and we could travel the world instead of the Mid West, and go see the Pyramids and climb the Eiffel Tower and visit the galleries in Florence…"

"...'We'?" asked Angela a little shyly, a little uncertainly, and Patrick realised with a jolt two things at once: that Angela had crept unnoticed into his plans and dreams, quietly and irrevocably, and that he had told her all of this without even telling himself.

Shocked, he glanced over at her, anxious eyes mirroring his own, and knew, suddenly, that he loved her, and, even more miraculously, that she loved him. And for the Boy Wonder, who felt so much less than wondrous, this was rare and a sacred thing.

 **EPILOGUE**

"Don't you walk away from us, girl," bellowed Billy Ruskin, taking a few slow, deliberate paces toward her, the rage in his eyes all the more terrifying for the man's control of it. Angela turned and stood her ground, flanked on each side by her faithful guardians. One hand resting on each dog's head. Her sharp chin tilted upward in defiance. Strong, fair, beautiful in her courage. "Oh, I'm not walking, Daddy," she said calmly. "I'm running."

 **Note: I've tried to encompass a few metaphors of escape. As I said, I could have done more with that. ;) I know that Angela has had many different incarnations in fan fic, but in my head she and Lisbon share a number of very significant characteristics: strength, kindness and loneliness. I didn't want to make them too similar, but I may have accidentally done so. Heh. Anyways, thank you kindly for reading. :) I don't own any of these characters or places!**


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